Chapter 18: Interested in This Child’s Play-Like Trial?

Lynn’s life was over.

This realization became incredibly clear as he was “escorted” by Vivian and Alicia, one on each side, down the tree-lined path of the Royal Academy.

Every gaze from the surrounding crowd pricked him like a needle.

“Astonishment, confusion, fear, and… pity?”

The students stopped in their tracks from a distance, pressing themselves against the walls to clear a path wide enough for a horse-drawn carriage for him—or rather, for the two powerful figures beside him.

Whispers buzzed around him like mosquitoes.

“Look, that’s Lynn…”

“Why is he walking with the Imperial Princess and the Saintess?”

“Escorted? Looks more like an arrest to me… look at his face. He looks like his father just died.”

“Keep it down! Do you want to die?”

Lynn remained expressionless, staring straight ahead.

He didn’t dare show any emotion.

To his left was Vivian, dressed in sharp knight’s attire with a greatsword strapped to her back.

Her golden ponytail swayed with her stride, exuding a sharp, heroic aura.

To his right was Alicia, wearing a pure white Saintess gown.

A Holy Emblem hung from her neck, and a holy, compassionate smile rested on her face.

One represented the Empire’s highest military and imperial authority.

The other represented the Church’s supreme faith and divine power.

And then there was him, Lynn—a perfectly ordinary transmigrator sandwiched right in the center of these two major powers.

He didn’t feel like a person; he felt like a mobile nuclear launch button.

Whoever touched him would die.

He had lived like this for a single day, and he was already on the verge of going insane.

When they ate, they sat across from him.

One would serve him food while the other offered soup, their eyes clashing in mid-air.

The meal was filled with invisible swords and shadows.

When he slept, they each pulled up a chair and sat outside his dormitory door.

One would close her eyes to rest her spirit while the other prayed in a low voice, scaring everyone who wanted to visit out of their wits.

They even stood guard outside the door when he used the bathroom.

Lynn was absolutely certain that if he stayed inside for more than five minutes, Vivian would definitely kick the door down.

“Was this any way for a human to live?”

Just as Lynn was on the brink of a breakdown, a ray of light shone into his dark life.

A crowd of students was gathered in front of the academy’s bulletin board.

A brand-new parchment notice had been posted in the most prominent position.

**[Mandatory Academy Mission Notification]**

**[To improve the practical combat capabilities of senior students, a collective practical training session at the Howling Wind Cave Dungeon will be organized in three days for a duration of one week. All students must participate in teams of two to five people; no absences allowed. Mission points are an important reference for the graduation evaluation.]**

“A dungeon!”

“Teaming up!”

“A mandatory mission!”

Lynn’s eyes instantly lit up.

‘This is a chance! A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!’

He knew about the Howling Wind Cave; it was the first large-scale dungeon from the early stages of the game.

The terrain was complex with countless branching paths and plenty of places to hide.

As long as he could join a normal team and enter the dungeon, he could find an opportunity to ditch these two human surveillance cameras.

He would find a corner to hide in until the mission ended!

This was his only hope of escaping this twenty-four hour close-proximity surveillance!

“Lord Lynn, what are you looking at?”

Alicia’s gentle voice sounded in his right ear.

“Are you interested in a trial that’s like child’s play?”

Vivian’s disdainful tone came from his left ear.

Lynn ignored them.

His heart was pounding with excitement.

“Team up! He had to form a team immediately!”

He needed to find a few ordinary students with decent strength, no special backgrounds, and normal personalities!

“The academy was full of people like that!”

He squeezed out of the crowd, his eyes darting around to scan the nearby students.

“There!”

Not far away, three male students were discussing something.

They caught his eye.

They were three commoner students from the same year as him.

Their strength was above average, and they usually got along well.

“Most importantly, they were sane!”

“They were the ones!”

Lynn took a deep breath, as if grasping for a lifeline, and strode over.

Vivian and Alicia followed him closely, never leaving his side.

“Hi, Martin, Bob.”

A smile that he thought looked friendly was squeezed onto Lynn’s face.

“Did you see the notice? About the mission to the Howling Wind Cave.”

The sturdy young man named Martin was startled to see Lynn take the initiative to speak.

He then let out an enthusiastic laugh.

“Lynn! Of course we saw it! We were just worrying about not having enough people! What do you think? Are you interested in joining us — “

Martin’s words cut off halfway.

He had seen the two people standing behind Lynn.

His smile froze on his face.

Vivian crossed her arms, her golden eyes sweeping over coldly.

Her gaze rested on Martin for less than a second, yet it made him instinctively shudder.

Alicia, on the other hand, nodded at them with a smile.

The smile was holy and flawless, but combined with her soft voice, it made their skin crawl.

“Are you… inviting Lord Lynn?”

The atmosphere of the entire scene instantly plummeted to the freezing point.

The faces of Martin’s two companions turned pale in a flash.

They winked frantically at him while their feet began to quietly shuffle backward.

Cold sweat beaded on Martin’s forehead as he stammered.

“No… no… I, we… our team… is already full! Yes, it’s full!”

“Oh? Is that so?”

Lynn’s heart sank.

“Yes, yes!” another tall, thin student interjected.

“We just found our fifth person! Just a moment ago! What a shame, Lynn, haha, haha…”

His forced laughter sounded worse than crying.

With that, the three of them bowed simultaneously to the two women behind Lynn as if they had seen a ghost.

Then, they turned and bolted without looking back, running faster than they would in a hundred-meter sprint.

Lynn stood frozen in place.

He didn’t even need to look back to feel the two satisfied gazes behind him.

He refused to believe this was happening.

He walked toward another team of girls who were recruiting members.

The result was exactly the same.

When those girls saw him, their eyes practically sparkled.

But once they saw the “escorts” behind him, the blush on their faces instantly turned into a deathly pallor.

“Ah… Lynn, we… we prefer to have an all-girls team…”

“Right, right! We have a cleanliness obsession!”

The girls scrambled for excuses and scattered as if fleeing for their lives.

“Next, Lynn tried seven or eight more times.”

“Without exception.”

Everyone treated him like he was the God of Plague.

The moment he approached, any crowd within 10 meters immediately dispersed like startled animals.

In the end, he was left standing alone in front of the bulletin board with only his two “prison guards” behind him.

Lynn’s heart turned completely cold.

“He understood now.”

As long as these two were with him, it was impossible for him to find any normal teammates.

In the entire Royal Academy, no one had the guts to steal someone away from the Imperial Princess and the Saintess.

His hope was shattered.

“It seems your popularity isn’t very good.”

Alicia’s voice carried a faint trace of amusement.